Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 | Page 8

by
the inhabitants of Holland, Belgium, and Germany, in our ancient
drama; and in consistency with what was said by Thomas Heywood
more than 200 years ago, some new information has been supplied
respecting the encouragement given to English players abroad. The fact
itself was well-known, and the author last cited (Shakspeare Society's
reprint of the Apology for Actors, 1841, p. 58.) furnishes the name of
the very play performed on one occasion at Amsterdam. The popularity
of our drama there perhaps contributed to the popularity of our lighter
literature, (especially of such as came from the pens of our most
notorious playwrights,) in the same part of Europe, and may account
for the circumstance I am about to mention.
At this time of day I need hardly allude to the reputation the celebrated

Robert Greene obtained in England, both as a dramatist and a
pamphleteer; and although we have no distinct evidence on the point,
we need hardly doubt that some of his plays had been represented with
applause in Holland. The Four Sons of Aymon, which Heywood tells us
was acted with such strange effect at Amsterdam, must have been a
piece of precisely the same kind as Greene's Orlando Furioso, which
we know was extraordinarily popular in this kingdom, and may have
been equally so abroad. We may thus suppose that Greene's fame had
spread to the Netherlands, and that anything written by him would be
well received by Batavian readers.
His Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or, a Quaint Dispute between
Velvet-breeches and Cloth-breeches, was published in London in 1592,
and went through two, if not three, impressions in its first year. It was
often reprinted, and editions in 1606, 1615, 1620, 1625, and 1635, have
come down to us, besides others that, no doubt, have entirely
disappeared. That the fame of this production extended to Holland, I
have the proof before me: it is a copy of the tract in Dutch, with the
following imprint--"Tot Leyden. By Thomas Basson. M.D.CI." A friend
of mine writes me from Rotterdam, that he has a copy, without date,
but printed about twenty or five-and-twenty years after mine of 1601,
which shows how long the popularity of the tract was maintained; and I
have little doubt that mine is not by any means the earliest Dutch
impression, if only because the wood-cut of the Courtier and the
Countryman (copied with the greatest precision from the London
impression of 1592) is much worn and blurred. The title-page runs as
follows, and the name of Robert Greene is rendered obvious upon it for
the sake of its attraction:--
"Een Seer vermakelick Proces tusschen Fluweele-Broeck ende
Laken-Broeck. Waer in verhaldt werdt het misbruyck van de meeste
deel der Menschen. Gheshreven int Engelsch door Robert Greene, ende
nu int Neder-landtsch overgheset. Wederom oversien."
At the back of this title is printed a short address from the translator to
the Edele ende welghesinde Leser, which states little more than that the
original had been received from England, and concludes with the

subsequent quatrain:--
"Ghemerckt dit Dal vol van ydelheyt Soo lachet vrij als Democritus
dede: Doch zy gheraeckt met vvat Barmherticheyt: Als Heraclyt,
bevveen ons qualen mede."
The spelling and punctuation are the same as in the original, and the
body of the tract follows immediately:
"Staende eens smorghens op van eene onrustige nacht rust, ende
vindende mijn ghemoet noch wat onstelt, gingh ick wandelen nae de
vermacklyche velden, om mijn Gheest wat te vermacken, dan wesende
noch in een Melancholijcke humeur, seer eensaem sonder eenighe
gheselschap, worde ick seer slaperich: alsoo dat ick droomde. Dat iek
een Dal sach wel verceirt, &c."
As few of your readers will have the means of referring to the original
English, I quote Greene's opening words from an edition of 1592:--
"It was just at that time when the Cuckoulds quirister began to bewray
Aprill, Gentlemen, with his never-changed notes, that I, damped with a
melancholy humor, went into the fields to cheere up my wits with the
fresh aire: where solitarie seeking to solace my selfe, I fell in a dreame,
and in that drowsie slumber I wandered into a vale, &c."
The Dutch version fills thirty-two closely printed pages, and ends with
the succeeding literal translation of Greene's last sentence:--
"Tot dese Sententie (aldus by de Ridder ghepronuncieert) alle de
omstaende Stemde daer toe, ende klapten in haere handen, ende
maeckte een groot geluyde, waer door eck waeker worde, ende schoot
uyt mynen Droom, soo stout ick op, ende met een vrolijck ghemoet,
gingh ick schryven, al her gene, dat ghy hier ghehoort hebt."
The above is one of the few books I purchased when I was in Holland
some thirty years ago; and as I have quoted enough for the purpose of
{104} identification, I may